Mitt Romney’s Loss At the Iowa Caucuses: “Serve You Right For the Negative Ads”

According to this report in The New York Times, a Huckabee supporter shouted “Serve you right for the negative ads,” when Mitt Romney conceded the Iowa vote to Mike Huckabee.

Now, I wish this single line could be the catchphrase, the iconic one-liner of the 2008 presidential elections. Gasp. Could Romney’s humiliating defeat at Iowa actually ring the death-knell for ridiculous, distracting and damaging political ad campaigns? I think Romney has embarrassed no-one but himself with ads that actually made very little sense, unless the idea was to expose the candidate’s own frighteningly low-brow sense of humor. Of particular interest was this Roundhouse Kick campaign. Is it too much to ask for an American president with more intelligence and wit than that of an eighth grader?

Anyway, to get back to the negative political ads, let’s hope they’re on their way out. According to several media scholars, including Stephen Ansolabehere and Shanto Iyengar in their book Going Negative, these ads actually drive down voter turnout by polarizing the electorate.

It’s another matter, of course, that Romney’s negative ads might have little to do with the reason Iowa did not support him. Apparently, it had more to do with Huckabee’s support from Christian evangelists. Sigh. Now that’s another matter altogether, for another day, another post.